Anything Horror Scott’s 10 Worst Films of 2013

I love this time of year. We’re in the afterglow of Christmas, we’re looking forward to the beginning of the new year, and it’s the season of lists!! Lists, lists, lists!! First up is a list I take no pleasure in compiling (okay; maybe a little pleasure). This is my list of the ten worst films I saw in 2013. Why little pleasure in this list? Because it makes me realize how many fucking hours I wasted watching shitty flicks this past year. Remember that these are only ten of my most hated flicks of 2013. The list is longer. Much longer. Also remember that this list doesn’t refer to the films I saw in 2013 but are the films I saw in 2013 which were made in 2013. If I didn’t limit it to films made in 2013 then this list would be a lot longer. I already know there’s a few films on my list that horror/genre fans are gonna completely disagree with me over. I don’t care; it’s my list (sticking my tongue out). 🙂

That sonuvabitch Philip Gardiner tricked me once again into watching one of his hollow, plotless, pointless, over-blown music videos. There’s literally no plot in this film and the acting and special f/x are also pretty abysmal. The film promises the following:

“Based on years of occult research and insider knowledge, Dead Walkers is a film packed with spies, soldiers, Nazis and secrets. But also a very dark and mysterious army raised in the pit of Nazi hell.”

… but this delivers nothing. If there was more than 30 minutes of research and time writing the plot on this one then they wasted their time!! I can’t remember another time I was more bored watching a horror film. If anyone knows how Gardiner keeps getting money to make his shitty films please let me know!!

Okay maybe I spoke too soon. DEATH BY VHS is another exercise in tedium. But whereas DEAD WALKERS at least had some style to it, DEATH BY VHS exhibits some of the worst, most amateurish filmmaking chops around. I’m all for indie horror filmmakers experimenting and finding their style, but the “talent” behind the camera here don’t have a clue how to go about making even a decent, watchable horror film.

This is an anthology flick that has each story loaded with poor acting, horrible special f/x, aimless, wandering plots, and has some of the worst filmmaking techniques around. The sound quality is awful, scenes aren’t framed correctly, the editing is jumpy at best, and the list goes on. Bottom line is that the fundamentals are all lacking/absent from this one. As I wrote at the end of the review, “DEATH BY VHS is not a good representation of what the indie horror scene is all about. Definitely skip this one. Seriously.”

This one gets my vote for the most disappointing film of the year as well. INFINITE SANTA 8000 promised mayhem, blood, gore, and in general a bunch of crazy shit, but I didn’t get any of that. I hated the style of the animation, didn’t like the story, and was just plain bored all around. And you know how much I love a good killer Santa flick!! The inspiration for this one, and I’m only speculating here, probably came from FUTURAMA’s killer robotic Santa. Except FUTURAMA’s killer Santa is actually enjoyable and fun.

I went pretty easy on this one in my review but my venom was still there. I’ve watched 3-4 so-called Bigfoot documentaries and each one end the same way. Inconclusive evidence that proves nothing, bickering in-fighting among various Bigfoot “researchers”, and silly theories that could never be proved )or disproved) in a million years. According to this documentary, the backbone … the Holy Grail, of Bigfoot research is the Patterson-Gimlin Tape. You know the one; the grainy picture of a Bigfoot casually strolling across the landscape. Apparently, and again this is according to this documentary, all Bigfoot researchers consider this footage to be undeniably true. Go ahead and do a quick Google search for “The Patterson-Gimlin Tape” and see how many of the links are dedicated to discussing how full of shit that footage is. Go ahead; I’ll wait. I’m not saying that footage is either true or bogus but if researchers are going to base their entire careers on it then it better be undeniably true. I’m just saying.

6. BENEATH

I apologize but I haven’t written up my review of this one yet. I have a version of it started in my queue, but every time I return to it to finish it I get pissed off and leave it in a huff. BENEATH is directed by indie filmmaker Larry Fessenden. The last feature film Fessenden directed was 2006’s THE LAST WINTER. Why he decided to break his directorial silence with BENEATH is beyond me. There’s nothing here to recommend. The plot can be summarized in the line, “Big fish terrorizes teens in a lake,” and that’s pretty much all that goes on. The fish isn’t some throwback to a once thought of extinct species. It’s also not a mutant fish due to some big corporation’s illegal dumping of toxic waste. Nope. The predator here is just a bigass lake fish … and a phony looking one at that. Seriously, it’s a horrible looking fish. But you’ll be feeling more sympathetic towards the fish than you will to any of the annoying characters in this film. I have no idea what the writers were doing here but I hated every single character and I wanted to see them die. This one seriously sucks out loud. You could make a better looking horror film in your bathtub with a rubber ducky!!

5. THE 28TH DAY: THE WRATH OF STEPH

Here’s another one I haven’t written the review for yet. This past week I’ve been binging on 2013 horror films hoping to find a diamond in the rough but unfortunately I’ve only seen turds in the rose garden!! This is another indie feature that simply shouldn’t be. Terrible pacing, acting, and f/x highlight this one. And if you Google the title of this film you’ll find the same phrase over and over again in various anonymous “reviews”:

“The 28th Day: The Wrath of Steph” is an action packed horror film in the vein of “Evil Dead 2” and “Ghostbusters” filled with laughs, thrills, cringes, and chills.

Are you fucking kidding me? The filmmaker and/or producers have the balls to compare this shit-fest with one of the best genre movies ever made (EVIL DEAD 2) and one of the best horror-comedies ever made (GHOSTBUSTERS)?? I can tell you first hand that there was neither action (and it certainly wasn’t “packed”) not was there much horror. And what a shame. Who wouldn’t wanna see a film where an ancient evil spirit possesses women during their menstrual cycle!?!!? Don’t be fooled; this one is horrible.

Here’s another “documentary” that will have your bullshit meter going off almost as soon as it begins. This DVD investigates various supernatural claims of ghosts, Bigfoot, and of course the titular Goatman. I’m not gonna get to deep into this one. If you don’t detect that is DVD is full of staged “real” interviews and made up facts then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.

3. THE SECRET VILLAGE

Another one I just watched this past week and haven’t had time to review yet. But if you’ve seen MUSHROOMS then you know the plot of THE SECRET VILLAGE. This is one of those films that gives it’s audience the middle finger and makes yo wish you read more books.

Okay; I didn’t absolutely hate this film, but I didn’t actually love it either. I know this one made Deggsy’s Top 10 Films of 2013 list and he makes a solid argument for it. I really love the premise of this one but was looking for something a little more than a standard ghost story. Yeah I thought the writing was a little lazy. There are, as Deggsy points out, some solid scares and creepy moments here, but the big reveal and excessive CGI just totally turned me off of this one. But like I said, this is definitely not the worst film on this list. That award goes to …

I hate, hate, HATED this film!! I know I’m gonna take some heat for hating this and including this film on my Worst of 2013 list, but are the Soska Sisters fucking serious?? This is the best they could follow up their DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK with?? AMERICAN MARY is the story of talented and promising surgical student Mary who is broke and decides to become a stripper (!!). But some really stupid things transpire and Mary ends up becoming the #1 underground body-modification princess. The acting here, especially by star Katharine Isabelle, is atrocious and she should never have been given the task with the lead role in this film. Luckily we get some strong supporting acting but it just wasn’t enough. And I’m still reading reviews talking about how graphic and gory this film is. Seriously? Everything is done off-screen. There’s seriously zero gore in this film. And I checked … I didn’t watch some edited version so don’t blame that.

And the Soska Sisters should be ashamed of themselves not just for having what is perhaps THE WORST cameo appearance ever captured on film, but they should be embarrassed to be women who made such an anti-woman film. Lots of female medical students are broke. But why, when Mary finally decides to get a job, is the first thing that comes to mind to become a stripper? Lazy writing is why. In fact the entire film is full of lazy writing. I just can’t believe the Soska Sisters made this piece of trash as their sophomoric effort. I guess they’re believing their own hype. But trust me, don’t believe the hype on this one. AMERICAN MARY is an exercise on tedium that had me rolling my eyes so many times that my contact lenses were falling out!! If you wanna see a better film with more gore, go watch Dee Snider’s STRANGELAND. Yeah you read that right, and that’s saying something!!

What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts on my choices and whether you agree with me or not.

People knock SUPERMAN RETURNS, but for its faults I thought it had a lot more faithful, iconic scenes in it than MAN OF STEEL, of which i can only remember one or two (and Pa Kent saying to his son, “Yeah, better that you let some kid die than to let others see your powers.” and “Wait while I get the dog” isn’t one of them).

I guess I’m alone here at Anything Horror on MAN OF STEEL. I thought it rocked, but then again I’ve never been a Superman comic book reader. Was MAN OF STEEL perfect? Hell no!! But I thought it was damn entertaining.

Deggsy; this might be our biggest rift with a film, but I thought SUPERMAN RETURNS was damn near unwatchable. I hated it with a burning passion of 1,000 cases of gonnareah!!!

For me, I liked parts of SUPERMAN RETURNS better than the whole movie: the plane rescue, Superman hovering over the Earth listening to *everything*, walking unharmed as machine gun fire bounces off him. Every time it went into the soap opera BS about his kid, I zoned out… LOL As for MAN OF STEEL, you’ve talked me into watching it again to give it a reassessment 🙂

Calling AM a drama is being generous, but I can see your point. Unfortunately the film is promoted by the filmmakers themselves not just as a horror film but as an excessively gory one at that.

FAIL

But I’m also looking at the fundamentals of this film: the acting, plot, character development, etc. this is why it made my worst of list. Besides a few strong supporting actors/actresses, the acting was abysmal (especially from Isabelle)!!